420 Dive Log Australasia OCTOBER 2026

RETURN TO RAJA AMPAT

Text and photos by Nigel Marsh

Tasseled wobbegong

www.nigelmarshphotography.com

and very pleased to see healthy coral reefs with little to no pollution. Even diving village jetties at Sawandarek and Arborek, which in other parts of Indonesia would have been covered in rubbish, I was surprised to find lovely hard corals, masses of fish and almost no pollution. I hoped this wouldn’t change and Raja’s Ampat’s coral reefs would remain rich and healthy. However, I was scared it would, as this part of Indonesia has a fast growing population and with more divers visiting these reefs, damage to the corals was bound to happen. I was also concerned about the fish populations, as many protected areas were heavily fished during the covid period. My return to Raja Ampat came completely unexpectantly in the form of an invitation from Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism. Each year the Ministry of Tourism organise special trips for travel agents and media to different parts of Indonesia. On this trip I was to be the media contingent, joining three Australian dive travel agents. The trip sounded too good to pass up and staying at a resort at Katembe Private Island it would give me a different perspective of diving Raja Ampat.

Raja Ampat is on the top of every diver’s list of places to dive for very good reason. I was fortunate to first dive this area in 2017 and was instantly impressed by the areas wonderful diving. Since then, many more resorts and liveaboards have started operating in the area, and many more divers have been descending on this remote part of Indonesia. Keen to see how this has impacted on the dive sites and marine life, I recently returned to Raja Ampat to get reacquainted with this famous dive destination. For those that don’t know, Raja Ampat is in West Papua, and its reefs are situated at the heart of the Coral Triangle, making it the richest and most diverse marine ecosystem on earth. With over 1600 species of fish and 550 species of coral, this rich area was protected as a marine park in 2004. Divers first started to explore Raja Ampat in the early 2000s, and since then the area has grown to be one of the most popular destinations in Indonesia. Today, dozens of dive resorts and liveaboard vessels take thousands of divers and snorkelers to explore Raja Ampat’s amazing reefs each year. My first two trips to Raja Ampat were in 2017 and 2018, exploring the area on a liveaboard vessel operated by Sea Safari Cruises. Both trips were amazing, leaving me overwhelmed by the beauty of the reefs, excited by the unexpected numbers of fish

Getting to Raja Ampat was a lengthy adventure on my first two trips and it hadn’t changed for this trip. We

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DIVE LOG Australasia #420 October ‘26

www.divelog.net.au